Ke$ha, The Weeknd, Blur, Spencer P. Jones and the Nothing Butts

LATEST RELEASES: Ke$ha's duet with Iggy Pop is impressive, but other songs on Warrior miss the mark.

Hit writers

National FeaturesDecember 6, 20127:31am

Ke$ha's new album Warrior scored 3/5.Source:Supplied

LATEST RELEASES: Ke$ha's duet with Iggy Pop is impressive, but other songs on Warrior miss the mark.

KE$HA - WARRIOR (SONY)

GRUBBY pop star Ke$ha has good taste in collaborators - so why persist with generic club-banging pap? The first half of this album is Katy Perry rejects with Ke$ha's ear-bleeding, auto-tuned nasal rap and swear words added for tired shock value.

Only Wanna Dance With You is the only time Max Martin has written a song The Strokes are obviously playing on - sadly it's not as amazing as it sounds on paper. And Greg Kurstin is woefully under-used, considering how good the In the Air Tonight robo-vibe of his Love Into the Light is after what's come before it.

Sounds like: a pop star at the crossroads

In a word: compromi$ed

Rating: 3/5

By Cameron Adams

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THE WEEKND - TRILOGY (UNIVERSAL)

TOGETHER with Frank Ocean, Canada's The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) is making future electronic soul closer to The xx or Aaliyah than what typically passes for R&B today.

Last year this anti-Bruno Mars aired three mixtapes online, all now artily repackaged (and remastered) here. The first, House of Balloons, is definitive, its illwave title-track ingeniously skewing Siouxsie and the Banshees' goth Happy House (elsewhere Tesfaye recontextualises Beach House).Tesfaye's existentialist R&B is spare yet subliminal. It's no surprise he's down with Drake, who shows up on The Zone. There's also an avant garde cover of Michael Jackson's Dirty Diana. Of three "new" songs, the vintage piano-laden Twenty Eight stands out.

Sounds like: 30 shades of alternative soul

In a word: adventurous

Rating: 3/5

By Cyclone Wehner

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BLUR - PARKLIVE (EMI)

THE end of the London Olympics could well have been the end of Blur. The Britpop kings' three-year-long comeback culminated in this gig in front of 40,000-odd fans in Hyde Park as part of the closing ceremony celebrations.

The band got into the spirit with a greatest hits set embracing their most British (London Loves, Jubilee) and poptastic (Girls & Boys, Song 2) moments. Though Damon Albarn's voice is not always high enough in the mix, it matters little when Parklife, with Phil Daniels, sends the joint into a frenzy. On disc two, Blur get a little wistful. The closing trio of End of a Century, For Tomorrow and The Universal will give you chills. But mostly, it'll all just make you bloody jealous you weren't there.

Sounds like: Britain throwing a party

In a word: woohoo!

Rating: 3.5/5

By Neala Johnson

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SPENCER P. JONES AND THE NOTHING BUTTS - SELF TITLED (SHOCK)

SCABS, whiskey, tatts, rollies, grey hairs, crow's feet, calloused hands ... you can hear it all on this foreboding album of rock'n'stroll, mock'n'droll. A serendipitous move by two members of The Drones to a different neck of the woods led to them hooking up with James Baker (Hoodoo Gurus, Beasts of Bourbon) and Jones as the latter was about to record solo.

Only a Matter of Time, Beware the Crossing and When Friends Turn bottle great ideas about life and mortality. But the meal ticket here is When He Finds Out - it will destroy when the combo play live in February. Bloody heaven.